


Collateral Damage

by theorytale



Series: The Saga of Hug Fortress [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-13
Updated: 2012-05-13
Packaged: 2017-11-05 08:00:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/404125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theorytale/pseuds/theorytale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki does some fact-finding of his own. Tony second-guesses himself. Playing the long game comes with risks and consequences.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Collateral Damage

"Jarvis," Tony said, heading up in the elevator, "is our surprise visitor still there?"

"He is, sir. However, he did step out for approximately an hour and a half, earlier."

"Hmm." Tony drummed his fingers against the wall of the elevator. Damn, he'd kind of been hoping to crawl into bed and catch up on some sleep. "I assume you'd warn me if he'd set up some elaborate booby-trap up there?"

"I would certainly consider it, sir."

"Aw, baby, I love you too." He grinned, pulling the homing cuffs out of his pocket and snapping them onto his wrists. Better safe than... falling hundreds of feet with no safety net.

The elevator slowed, stopped, let him out at the penthouse. He stepped out, peering around cautiously.

Somehow, Loki had found his way into the computer system; there were at least a couple dozen files up on holographic display, blueprints and multimedia files and reports. Snatches of sound clips played as Loki enlarged first one file, then another, flipping through them at spend. Most of them were in Tony's own voice; he recognized dictated notes, test logs, press conferences.

_"I'm just not the hero type."_ Yeah, hard to forget _that_ press conference.

"Jarvis," Tony said, very politely. "You didn't mention that our new friend was reading my diary."

Loki's fingers faltered, very briefly; Tony only noticed because he was watching carefully.

"I'm sorry, sir." Jarvis sounded genuinely apologetic. "I was unable."

"What do you mean, unable?"

"Ah, that would have been me." Loki smiled faintly, but didn't look away from the holographic screen. "I didn't want to be bothered by your… I suppose it was meant to be security?" He smirked, almost winking. "So quaint."

Tony swayed a little, catching his breath. It was easy to forget how insanely powerful Loki was. All the stuff he did, all the 'magic', it was impossible enough to seem unreal. Teleportation, illusions, even his super-strength, all of that Tony could shake off as if it was just a dream. But this, his computer, his goddamn _state-of-the-art_ , purpose-built AI computer - Loki just waltzed into the system and bypassed all the security like it was as easy as walking past a 'keep out' sign.

"Yep, that's me," he said, forcing a smile. "Tony Stark, world-class inventor of… quaint."

Loki laughed, soft and mocking. "Oh, don't pout. I'm sure you're quite talented… by _mortal_ standards."

"That's what they all tell me." Tony crossed the room in a few long strides. Deliberately, he rested one hand on Loki's arm while reaching across him to turn the projection off. He could feel Loki go very still and quiet under his palm, and wondered just how hard-up for touch he really was.

Loki tsked quietly. "I was watching that."

"Too much television is bad for your eyes," Tony said promptly. He was about to add 'go play outside' and then he thought better of it; Loki would probably take it was an invitation to wreak havoc on Manhattan again. "Have you eaten yet?"

Loki drew back, turning to face him; Tony let his hand fall back to his side. At least Loki looked amused. Amused was probably safe. "How long are you intending to keep up this charade?"

"That depends." Tony flicked his fingers at the air where the holograms had been. "The superhero charade? Probably until it kills me, I dig the adrenaline. The charade of being a responsible adult who eats on a regular basis? About half an hour, so if you want lunch you should speak up now."

Loki narrowed his eyes briefly, then walked backwards a few steps, putting some more distance between them. "You know, you're not nearly so witty as you think you are."

Tony shrugged. "I've got enough money, I can pay people to laugh at my jokes."

Loki's mouth twitched but he shook his head. "Ah, but you don't pay me."

"Do you want me to?" Tony grinned, not particularly serious but enjoying the mental image of Fury's shitfit anyway. "I could put you on the payroll. Special consultant related to magic… stuff."

Loki's eyes shadowed briefly; something in that had been the wrong thing to say. He shook his head again and directed a shallow, mocking bow at Tony. "My thanks for the gracious offer, but I think I'll take my leave."

Tony watched him vanish, then wryly addressed the empty air. "So that's a no on lunch?"

"Very droll, sir," Jarvis commented.

"No one asked you." Tony turned back to the little podium and switched the holographic projector back on. "Is Loki still influencing your systems?"

"No, sir."

"Good. Show me everything he looked at." It seemed like Tony wasn't the only one making plans.

\--

It wasn't long until Loki popped his head up again; after all, he was still in the middle of some scheme. SHIELD forwarded them a report about a robbery in Belgium with Loki's fingerprints - literally - all over it, despite the hour-long blank in the security tapes. A mansion full of priceless art and none of it stolen; Loki had gone straight for the hidden safe and taken god only knew what from it. Along the way, he'd slaughtered almost everyone in the mansion. Thor had looked very grim and Steve had given Tony a dirty look, as if he could have prevented it somehow.

Maybe he could have. He spent a long time rereading the report, wondering if they could have captured Loki before it happened. Except, then what? Asgard, escape, and all it meant was that someone else would be dead. Probably a lot more people.

He doubted that mattered to the poor kids whose parents were dead _now_. Or the cook whose face Loki had sliced up.

He was about to tell Jarvis to start a new file, then stopped. He thought of Loki breezing past his security and rifling through all his projects. Loki didn't need to see this.

Finding paper in Avengers Tower was no easy feat. Finally he went to Steve, who rummaged in a drawer and came back with a spiral-bound notebook and a pen. "What do you need paper for, anyway? You hate paper. You called it the cudgel of an inefficient bureaucracy and a disgrace to man's ever-striving quest for advancement."

"I am actually flattered that you remember that--"

"You were pretty vehement about it."

"--but sometimes a man just needs to go old-school." Tony started to retreat to the elevator, waving the notebook in the air. "Thanks for the cudgel."

"What do you need it for?" Steve asked again, trailing after him.

Tony smiled and didn't give a damn how fake it looked. "I'm going to make one of those cartoon flipbooks. Avengers porn. I'm thinking Black Widow riding Thor like a pony, yeah?"

Steve's jaw clenched in irritation, and he stopped following, so that was great. Tony didn't really care if Steve was pissed at him right now. He was pissed at himself. He did wait until the elevator door closed before flipping open the notebook to draw a line down the middle of the first page. Two columns: Survivors, Deaths.

He didn't get much copied over before the elevator reached his workshop, and he paused long enough to get his desk, kick his feet up on it, and call to Jarvis for mood music. Then he did the rest of it, copying each name and set of details from the SHIELD report. It felt weird to be handwriting something that wasn't an autograph, and with a sour taste in his throat he closed the notebook to scrawl his signature over the cover.

"Congratulations," he said, quietly enough to be drowned out by the Led Zep coming through the speakers. "You have now joined the increasingly large group of people who've been completely fucked over by Tony Stark."

He tossed the notebook onto his desk and wearily rubbed his face. Fuck Loki, anyway. Psycho needed to take a goddamn Xanax.

Because he hadn't suffered enough yet (and never would, never could), Tony picked the tablet back up again and opened the files that came attached with the report, the original interview transcripts. Belgian French was close enough to Parisian French that he could read them easily enough, even if he kind of wished he couldn't.

There were four survivors altogether: the two kids, a cleaner, and the cook Loki had mutilated. Roosje Lemaire. Tony had already made a note to organize plastic surgeons for her, the best of the best. He didn't care who he had to fly where or how much he had to pay to make it happen. He could do that much for her. And a prosthetic eye. There probably wasn't one good enough, he'd design something, make it better than a real one.

He couldn't even tell, reading her interview, what had made Loki do it. Lemaire said she had dropped to the floor, begging - same as the cleaner, and that was probably what had saved them both; Loki did have that sick thing for people _kneeling_. Then she said Loki had smiled and just gone at her with his sword. Why? What was he trying to prove?

What made Lemaire different from the other woman, Janssen?

It didn't make any sense. Unless it was just random cruelty, and that was entirely possible too.

Tony sighed and flipped to the kids' interviews. The little boy was too young to give much. The girl - Yvette, good god, the least he could do was give them their _names_. Yvette and Frederic. According to Yvette's interview, the bad man had come in, her tutor had yelled at him and got a sword in his chest for his trouble. Yvette had yelled at her brother to run, had charged up and actually socked Loki in the gut like some fearless miniature Natasha.

Seven years old. Jesus Christ.

She said Loki had crouched down and touched her cheek (wiped blood on her face) and whispered in her ear.

_"Il m'a dit que j'étais très courageuse et que j'ai sauvé la vie de mon frère."_

"You're still in there," Tony murmured, tapping at that sentence on the tablet. "There's still _something_ in there."

_"He told me I was very brave, and that I saved my brother's life."_

On the other hand - Tony flipped back to SHIELD's summary report - in the estimated timeline, not long after Loki had let the kids go, he'd attacked and half-blinded Lemaire. Whatever kernel of conscience was still in there was buried under a pretty heavy layer of giant rage monster.

Maybe he'd made a mistake. Maybe this whole thing was a terrible idea. But unless they were allowed to execute Loki - and Thor had made it pretty clear that was going to end badly for all concerned, and apparently his folks were backing him on that - Tony couldn't think of much else besides the status quo, and _that_ was just untenable.

He pulled up the photo of Roosje Lemaire with the paramedics, her face dripping with blood, a ruined mess where her left eye had been. That… that right there, that was why he was doing this. It was what he was trying to stop, and the consequence, all rolled up into one guilt-inducing jpeg.

He didn't know how long he stared at the photo. Eventually, Jarvis lowered the music and announced an incoming call from Pepper. Tony snorted.

"She told you to turn my music down, didn't she. You're supposed to be _my_ AI, Jarvis, you traitor."

"My apologies, sir, but it did seem you might not hear me otherwise."

Tony took his feet off the desk and sat up properly, putting the tablet aside and switching on the closest monitor. "Put her through here."

Pepper's face flickered up on screen and he felt his heart ease a little. He couldn't help but smile, and leaned forward a little, resting his chin in his hand. "Hey, Pepper-pot. Holding down the fort okay?"

"As always," she said, with a cute little smirk.

"Ooh, getting sassy there. I like it." He reached to the tablet and turned it off, so that photo would stop staring up at him. "You're still coming in tomorrow?"

"That's right, I'll get in at…" Pepper paused, checking her notes as if she didn't have her whole itinerary memorized. "Around nine thirty. If I come straight to the Tower I should be--"

"Ah," Tony said, as a thought occurred to him. A very ugly thought involving Loki standing in his penthouse in the middle of the night. "You know what? Why don't I book us in at a luxury hotel, just the two of us. No Avengers. It'll be like a romantic weekend getaway."

Pepper arched an eyebrow at him. "It's Tuesday."

"I said _like_ a romantic weekend getaway. Only in more of a romantic… midweek kind of sense. Even better, we'll miss the weekend crowds." He tried for a charming smile, but unfortunately Pepper had developed a really unfair habit of seeing right through those.

"Tony." And that was her serious voice, right there. "What's wrong?"

Tony took a slow breath and let it out again. He wanted to say 'nothing, nothing'; wanted to distract and reassure her and deflect with a joke. He also didn't want to have a fight in twenty-four hours time about how Pepper was a big girl and he needed to treat her like one, so he fought his better instincts and said, "It's a long story. Loki's involved. Can I tell you tomorrow? There's some stuff I want to run past you and I don't want to do it on the phone."

Pepper studied him for a moment longer, then nodded. "Okay."

"Thank you," he said, and meant it. "I'll email you the booking info. There's some other things as well, a woman in Belgium we need to take care of, medical bills, I'll send you the details."

"Belgium," Pepper said, but she didn't ask questions because she was Pepper and she was amazing. "Of course."

Tony looked at her through the screen and more than anything he wanted her here _right now_ , hated her being away, but between the company and the Avengers there were just too many places to be for them to stay together all the time. "Pepper," he admitted, "I think I'm doing something really stupid."

"You usually are," Pepper said, but she smiled, rueful and fond. "And it usually turns out amazing."

"God, I hope so," Tony murmured, and closed his eyes.

\--

It was actually a couple of days before they talked about it. When Pepper got in on Wednesday night she was tired - or said she was - and then they had oh-god-I-missed-you-sex, and then Pepper was _definitely_ tired, and for that matter so was Tony, so they slept. (Tony kept his travel armor under the bed. He would have preferred it under his pillow but even briefcase-sized was, to be fair, a little too bulky.)

Thursday Pepper had to go in to the office, so Tony went back to Avengers Tower and started designing a bionic eye. He did actually remember to get back to the hotel before Pepper was due back, which he was quite proud of, but then Pepper ruined it by being a workaholic and showing up two hours late.

At that point room service was a necessity, while Tony tapped at his tablet and tried to figure out how to make the photodiodes more sensitive; he was not doing a half-assed job on this, not when it was his fault, Lemaire deserved an eye that worked properly, dammit, and he was going to--

Pepper pulled the tablet away from him and set it aside. "Eat," she said firmly.

"I am eating," Tony protested, although come to think of it he wasn't sure the fork had ever made it to his mouth. It still had a piece of steak on its prongs; he popped the steak in his mouth, chewed a couple of times, and then showed her just to be obnoxious.

"Very mature," Pepper sighed.

He did at least have the decency to swallow before he answered. "That's why you love me."

"You seem very sure of that," she retorted, and he grinned and thought about showing her his half-chewed food again, but he settled down and they finished eating without (much) more ridiculousness.

Almost automatically he reached for the tablet again, but Pepper only moved it away from him. "Ah-ah-ah. You're going to tell me why we're here, in a hotel--"

"Beautiful hotel," Tony protested.

"--Instead of in our luxurious, custom-built penthouse, that I own at least twelve percent of--"

"Really, seriously, you're still milking that?"

"--Where I have clean clothes, and beautiful shoes, and three different kinds of body lotion that smell like pomegranate."

Tony paused. Cautiously he ventured, "I still maintain that you don't actually need three different--"

Pepper's expression dared him to continue. It wasn't the good kind of dare.

"Okay." He pushed his plate away so he could rest his forearms on the table. "So we have kind of a routine with Loki. He shows up, wreaks havoc, we catch him, send him off back to Asgard, they inflict some godawful martial punishment on him until he escapes and it starts all over again."

Pepper nodded, just watching him and listening.

"And it's not…" Tony spread his hands in frustration. "It's not _doing_ anything, he just kills more people. He needs about a thousand years of therapy. He's fucked up, Pepper."

She leaned back in her chair a little. "I think we worked that out when he tried to lead an alien invasion."

Tony frowned, running through the little he'd got Loki to say about that. "He was in some kind of - I don't know, we didn't get into the physics of it - some kind of interdimensional void, H.P. Lovecraft, the works. It really did a number on him. Those aliens didn't take it easy on him either. I mean, I'm not letting him off the hook, he has done some seriously terrible things, but…" He shrugged. "So have some other unnamed people we both know, except _they_ were given the chance to get fixed, turn things around."

Pepper gave him a slightly incredulous look, and he wondered suddenly if she thought he was talking about Natasha or himself. "I think Loki's case is a little more extreme, don't you?"

"Not denying that." He drummed his fingers on the table, working through his words before he spoke them aloud. He didn't want to persuade Pepper, he wanted her honest opinion. Maybe it said something that he would rather trust her with this than his teammates, but Pepper's good judgment had been saving his ass for years. "I saw him have a flashback. In the middle of the street, right in the middle of a fight with Thor. He didn't have a clue where he was. My god, he was so scared, Pepper."

"He might have been--"

"He wasn't. It was real."

She sighed a little, leaning forward to cover his hands with her own. "He's not you, Tony."

"No." Tony thought about the woman in Belgium, about all the corpses left behind. "No, he's violent, and dangerous, I know that. He doesn't think like us. He's not a twenty-first century human, he's a medieval space viking, with magic, and he thinks you solve problems by killing and if you still have a problem you probably haven't killed enough people."

Pepper was watching him closely. "But?"

He realized suddenly what he'd been trying to articulate to himself for a while now. "But that's exactly it. He's medieval. As much as he shouts about no one understanding him, he's not an angry teenager who came to school one day with a gun. Yeah, he never fit in, he likes black leather coats and dramatic monologues, but he's not fifteen. He's endured at least a thousand years of isolation and rejection."

He met her eyes in something oddly like surprise. "He held out _a thousand years_ before he snapped and it still took something pretty big to do it. I can't help but think there must still be enough there to put back together."

"Or he's been ground down for a thousand years and there's nothing left but dust," Pepper suggested quietly, but he recognized it as just that: a suggestion. She was clearly thinking over his words, working through it with her brilliant, brilliant brain.

She rubbed her thumbs against the sides of his hands. "I'm assuming this all has something to do with the stupid thing you may or may not be doing? Tell me you didn't give Loki the business card of some poor psychiatrist, I don't want to handle that lawsuit."

Tony coughed and flashed her an awkward smile. "I might have befriended him? A little? There was hugging."

Pepper let go of him to cover her face with her hands. Her shoulders were shaking and for one panicked moment he thought she was crying, but she was laughing, of course she was laughing. She lowered her hands and looked at him with something like horrified amusement. "Only you, Tony, I swear."

"It was a spur of the moment thing," he said, "which all my best ideas are."

"And your worst," she pointed out meanly. "And how does the hotel fit into all of this?"

"Ah." Tony winced a little. "It turns out, Loki can just show up in the Tower whenever he wants. Personally I would have been quite happy never knowing that."

Pepper sucked a short breath in through her teeth, then seemed to accept it and move on. "Is that everything?"

"That's about the guts of it, yeah."

She nodded absently, staring off into the distance while she thought. Tony eyed his tablet and thought about reaching for it while he waited - he didn't want to rush her after all - but he was pretty sure he'd just get his hand smacked if he tried.

Eventually Pepper said, "So. We don't have the means to contain him ourselves. Apparently neither do Asgard, not for very long, anyway. We can't kill him without risking war. And you're proposing… option four: Tony Stark, amateur psychologist?"

"I _am_ a genius," he said. It came out a little defensively.

"But not always a terribly _social_ genius." She rested her chin on the palm of her hand and looked at him seriously. "Do you think it's safe?"

"Not even a little bit," he said regretfully. "But it's probably not any less safe than what we were doing anyway. And it's the only way I can see that has a chance of lowering his body count."

"Mm." She mulled it over a while longer. "Honestly? I don't know. I think you're over-identifying with him - and please, I don't want to think about the implications of that - and I think you're being very optimistic." A pause. "I also think you manage to do the impossible on a regular basis."

"I like it when you feed my ego," Tony said, grinning. She hadn't really agreed, but it wasn't a red light, either, so he was happy to leave it at that for now.

"Yes, which is why I try not to do it too often." Pepper paused and looked speculative. "Have you considered just putting him over your knee and giving him a good spanking? Clothed or unclothed, it might be beneficial either way."

Tony groaned and held up a palm as if to ward her off. "Good god, don't you start. Do you know how many Avengers decided I was sleeping with him?"

"Casting aspersions on your lily-white reputation. The nerve of them." Pepper stood up and leaned over to kiss his temple. "I am going to take a shower. You're welcome to join me, or you can keep working on whatever it is you were doing."

"And _you_ said I didn't need a waterproof tablet," Tony retorted.

She vetoed that idea with a scathing glance. "No."

"Fine." He rose and started following her to the bathroom. "But no more talking about spanking Loki."

Pepper threw him a teasing smile over her shoulder. "Does that mean you don't want to play naughty supervillain and the big, strong Avenger?"

"Well, now." Tony smirked back. "Let's not be hasty."

\--

Pepper was back in the office the next day, so Tony was back in his workshop. Steve was apparently not too pissed off, because he came to visit, bearing sandwiches no less. Tony grunted his thanks and used one hand to eat while the other manipulated his draft schematic.

"What are you making?" Steve asked, eyeing the hologram.

"Bionic-- uh, prosthetic eye." Tony couldn't remember if they'd introduced Steve to _The Six Million Dollar Man_ , which was actually even funnier when compared to a team of real life superheroes.

"Like a glass eye?"

"No, one that actually works, transmits light to the brain." He stuffed the rest of the sandwich into his mouth and picked up another one.

Steve tilted his head, considering that answer, then said, "No one's done that yet?"

Tony shrugged slightly; finished chewing and swallowed. "Some, but they're all terrible. Hey - what do you mean 'no one's done that yet', Mister Steam Engine, is our amazing futuristic technology not _advanced_ enough for you now?"

Steve blinked at him. "You have tiny wireless telephones that can make movies and send them through the air. I'm sorry, I have trouble keeping up with the details of what impossible thing has or hasn't been invented yet."

But that was completely different, and Tony opened his mouth to say so, and then he realized that there was really no point giving Steve an in-depth electronics lesson. "Well," he said instead, "yeah. Fair enough."

"Is this because of Belgium?" Steve asked quietly, gesturing at the hologram.

"Yes," Tony said tersely, and shoved some more sandwich into his mouth.

Steve didn't say 'it's not your fault', and Tony was oddly grateful for that at the same time as he resented it. Even though he'd spent the last few days blaming himself. But, he had a notebook buried in the bottom of his desk with two lists in it, and both of those lists were going to get longer, he knew.

Naturally, right at that moment was when they got a hit on Loki.

Facial recognition turned him up in Iceland of all places, and Tony left Pepper a message and went straight for his armor. He was a little faster than the jet - better powered - and the sooner they could get eyes there, the better. If they could prevent another slaughter like the one in Belgium - he had to try, anyway.

He soared through the air with the jet trailing behind him, powered by urgency as much as anything else. They really needed a faster way to travel long distances. Maybe Tony could invent human teleportation. He couldn't quite wrap his head around the physics of it (yet) but there were mutants that could do it, it had to be possible. It was a pity Thor didn't know anything about it. Maybe he could get Loki drunk again and persuade him to break it down into 'simple' concepts--

Loki, Loki, Loki, that was the problem, wasn't it, the problem of Loki, poor shattered rage monster. Who murdered people and fed on terror and had a soft spot for children. Not just children, Tony thought suddenly; _siblings_ , and how different would Loki's life have been if he'd had a sister instead of a brother, if he'd been the heir?

_If wishes were horses_ , and Tony grimaced, pushing those useless thoughts aside.

His HUD flashed with an incoming call from Pepper and he discarded it. She'd probably just checked her messages and wanted to tell him to be careful, which he tended to hate out of some vague sense of superstition. Instead he reopened comms to the jet and asked, for what seemed like the tenth time, "What's the sitrep?"

Clint's voice came back loud and clear. "No change. He's still just walking around the museum. Whatever he's looking for, he hasn't found it yet."

Well, that could only be a positive.

He concentrated on flying for a while, mentally poking at the teleportation problem - localized wormholes, maybe, artificial folds in space-time, if there was a way to anchor each end - and then Clint yelled right in his ear. " _Shit!_ "

"What?" Tony slowed down, looking over his shoulder. "Cap hit a pigeon?"

"Of course not," Steve said, sounding annoyed; he hated having his piloting questioned, which was one of the reasons he didn't mind Tony flying separately from everyone else. Something about backseat driving, ha.

"He's _on the camera_ ," Clint moaned, and it took Tony a moment to understand what he-- shit.

"Oh, my god. I am so stupid. I am so, so, stupid." He wanted to bang his head against something but there was nothing solid around him. He had to settle for slowing further down until he was at a slow enough speed to turn safely. He came around in a tight loop then drew to a stop entirely and held position in the air.

Something he couldn't make out over the comms. Clint answered whoever had spoken: "He blocked the security cameras in Belgium. This is either a distraction, or a trap."

Or both. They should have realized it the moment that face showed up, what was this, amateur hour? Tony frowned, frustrated with himself. "What do we do? This is still the best lead we've got."

There was a little pause, and then Steve spoke up, calculating. "Iron Man, peel off and return to New York. If we're being lured away on purpose - if he shows up there, I don't know, maybe you can hug him into submission again."

"Oh, ha ha."

"We'll continue on to Reykjavik. Best intel still has him located there, and civilians are at risk."

And they could capture Loki without Tony kicking up a fuss about sending him back to Asgard. Clever.

"Sure thing, Captain." He tossed off a sloppy salute, heedless that there was no one there to see it, and headed back the way he'd come, repulsors at full power. It wasn't too long before he was passing the jet, flying in the other direction.

The HUD lit up again with another call from Pepper. Tony sighed to himself. This really wasn't the time. "Jarvis, can you--"

A distraction. A trap.

"Sir?" Jarvis prompted.

" _Safety override_ ," Tony snarled, the back of his neck prickling with sudden sweat. "Maximum speed. Put that call through, but incoming only until my say-so."

"Sir, are you sure--"

"Just _do it_ , Jarvis!"

"Connecting now," and he could feel the sudden burst of speed, the extra drag of power.

"…don't think you're being completely honest with me, Ms. Potts." Loki's soft, silky voice filled his ears, and Tony closed his eyes against a rush of helpless rage. If that asshole touched her - laid so much as one _finger_ on her - he would make it his life's mission to rip Loki apart, and to hell with Asgard, he'd go to war against the whole damn realm if he had to, just let them try to stop him.

"I'm not sure what more you want me to say," Pepper said. Her voice was strained, but steady. Attagirl.

"Oh, come now," Loki said. "You are his right hand man, if you'll forgive the expression. I imagine there's little that goes on in his tiny brain that you don't know about. Isn't that right, Stark?"

Tony blinked. "We are on incoming only, right, Jarvis?"

"That's correct, sir."

Loki's voice came a little louder, as if he was leaning towards wherever Pepper had hidden her phone. "That is you on the other end of that contraption, is it not?"

Well, okay. Points to Pepper for trying, anyway; it wasn't her fault Loki was unnaturally shrewd. Tony sighed. "All right, gimme outgoing." He paused long enough to remind himself that hurling threats over the satellite connection would be… counterproductive. If Pepper could be calm, he could be calm too. Calm and friendly. "You know, Loki, I'd really appreciate if you didn't move in on my girl as soon as I left the city, it's kind of bad form."

"Oh, I assure you, anything between Ms. Potts and I is… purely professional."

"He's been the perfect gentleman," Pepper added dryly, and Tony perked up. 'Perfect' he knew. 'Perfect' was one of the code words they'd arranged with the corporate security consultants; it meant Pepper was unharmed, at least for now.

"Good to know," he told her, very clearly. Message received. Now if he could think of some subtle way to work birds into the conversation, let her know he was on the way - ah, to hell with it. Subtle wasn't his strength. Tacky and clichéd, he could do. "I mean it. My heart is as free as a bird."

"Since you took such an interest in me," Loki said, pleasant in the kind of way that serial killers and door-to-door bible-thumpers were, "I thought it only polite to return the favor."

Tony winced a little. He'd already figured out this little visit was his fault, he didn't need Loki to rub it in his face. "I would have settled for you restocking my bar. Cocktail ingredients don't come cheap."

"Cocktails?" Pepper said, in a voice too long-suffering to be truly disbelieving. "Really?"

"Really?" he mimicked her. "You're going to pick _now_ to give me crap over that?"

"Oh _dear_. I do hope you two aren't going to quarrel," said Loki, smug with amusement.

"We won't quarrel," Tony said, eyeing the coordinates display on his HUD. Still too far away; the distance made him itch. "She'll talk, I'll apologize. It's a well-practiced routine. I'm sorry, Pepper; next time we have cocktails I'll remember to invite you."

Loki laughed a little, but there was something bitter in it. "Why stop there? Why, the three of us could go out to dinner and _bond_ as we discuss our favorite books."

Pepper made a thinking sound. "Well, we were supposed to be dining with a senator tonight, but that can be rescheduled. I'll be honest with you, though, Tony's not really a big 'books' fan."

Tony actually wobbled mid-air, he was struggling so hard to keep from laughing. Pepper was never, never allowed to yell at him again for mouthing off to bad guys. Oh, what he wouldn't pay to see Loki's _face_ right now. He couldn't, though, and judging mood was so much harder without visual cues, so he bit back on all the jokes he wanted to make. It was one thing to piss off super-powered psychopaths when he was alone, but not when Pepper was in the line of fire.

"Did you know," Loki said, dropping the cutting sarcasm for a moment, "that your monstrosity of a tower has an empty floor?"

"It has a lot of empty floors." He didn't know where Loki was going with this and the uncertainty put him on edge. More on edge. "A while back, some jackass tried to launch an alien invasion from the top of it, rental demand dropped a little bit. Disappeared might be a better word for it."

"How unfortunate." The amusement in Loki's voice was palpable.

"That's really an inappropriate level of glee, I'm just letting you know," Tony informed him. "It's hurtful, is what it is." He wanted to make a joke about sticking Loki with the boring senator as punishment, but he was a little afraid Loki would _take him up on it_. He needed a nice, safe way to persuade Loki to leave - without hurting Pepper.

'Safe' and 'Loki' probably didn't belong in the same sentence.

"So are you really in Iceland?" he said abruptly. "Are you even really in Pepper's office? I mean, how does that work, can you be two places at once, or…?"

"Surely you don't expect me to give up all my secrets."

No, of course not, that would be too easy. Why couldn't he _get there faster_. "I'll trade you," Tony said, trying to sound casual. "An answer for an answer."

"If you insist," Loki said, sounding a little too pleased with himself.

"Within reason," Tony added belatedly, because he was fully anticipating Loki to ask the worst possible question.

"But of course. To answer your question, no, I cannot be in two places at once, at least not in any way you would understand it. One is merely an illusion, a projection of myself."

"But are you in Iceland, or New York?"

"You asked three questions, Stark," Loki said, his smile audible. "You didn't specify which of them I should answer."

Sneaky bastard. "Rules lawyer," Tony accused. "Semantics. You know what I meant."

"Honestly, do you know _nothing_ about m--" A startled pause. "What--"

"Well, paperclips bounce off of him," Pepper said drily. "Does that help?"

This time, Tony couldn't suppress his laugh, even though it wasn't reassuring at all. He would have much preferred the real Loki to be in Reykjavik, and only an illusion in the same room as Pepper. "And that is why I love you. Thank you, Pepper."

"Well played," Loki conceded. "You have a little more wit about you than those I'm accustomed to dealing with, I'll grant you that."

"Yes, she does," Tony said, with some pride. He didn't want Loki paying too much attention to Pepper, though, so he redirected the conversation. "So, what do you want to know?"

"Oh, I think I'd like to keep that little debt up my sleeve for now."

Oh, good. That wasn't at all worrying.

"In fact," Loki continued, in a voice that was far too sly for Tony's liking, "why don't I give you some time to… consider the possibilities. I'm sure we'll be seeing each other _very_ soon."

A chill ran down Tony's back. "Do you wanna, uh, give me a time and place on that, I'll schedule you into my diary--"

"He's gone," Pepper said.

It might have been the most beautiful thing he'd ever heard. He closed his eyes in sheer relief, taking a ragged breath. "I'm sorry, my god, Pepper, I am _so sorry_ , I had no idea he'd come after you--"

"It's okay, Tony, I'm fine. I'm fine."

"You're not fine, I can hear you shaking. You should be shaking. _I'm_ shaking. Did he threaten you? If he threatened you I will _end him_ , I don't care what Thor says, I'll take him apart. Nobody gets to threaten you, not anybody." They were talking over each other but that was fine, it was fast. Efficient.

"He didn't thre-- not really, he just--"

"Not really means he did."

"--just wanted to know what you were doing--"

"Of course he did, he thinks I'm trying to trap him." In hindsight, that was spectacularly obvious. "Hell with it, I'll stop, I'm calling it off, it's not worth it. It was a stupid idea anyway. Asgard can have him--"

"No--"

"--they can throw him in supermax for all I care, he-- wait, 'no'? That was you, right, you just said 'no' to angry fake-god punishment?"

"Tony." Pepper's voice was small and tired. "If you send him back there, and he escapes again, is he going to just forget that he can get to you through me?"

Tony's throat closed up in horror and he recoiled instinctively, knocking himself off course. Even with the armor's compensation systems, at this high speed the g-force of a small turn was crushing. For long seconds all he could hear was the loud thump of his heart as he struggled to straighten out his flight.

" _Shit_ ," he said, when he had the armor under control again. "I'm sorry."

"It was probably inevitable," she said with a sigh. She really didn't blame him, he could tell; she wasn't just saying it to make him feel better. Somehow that just made him feel worse.

He wanted to apologize again, but he bit his tongue. "I can't believe you _threw a paperclip at him_."

"I tossed it. Gently!"

"You are never allowed to tell me off again. For _anything_. You offered to _reschedule a senator_ for him, for god's sake."

"Well, technically Loki is of higher rank." She sounded like she was trying hard to smile.

"I read books!"

"You read technical specifications."

"And Far Side cartoons!"

There was a pause, then Pepper said in the same small voice as before, "Tony, how far away are you?"

He glanced at the HUD and did a quick calculation in his head. "Seven minutes. I'm at maximum speed already, I can't get there any faster, I'm sor--"

"No, it's-- that's fine." He could almost see her sitting at her desk, taking deep breaths to hold it all together because she was brave and perfect and wonderful. "Seven minutes. I'll just-- would you keep talking to me?"

"I can do that," he promised, and he did: spoke about whatever filled his head, innocuous things, like Steve's laundry disasters and Clint's disturbing fondness for playing Singstar. When he hit New York City he let his speed drop to something within safety parameters, heading for the main Stark Industries offices, where he landed on the helipad with a heavy thump. He pulled off his gauntlets, still talking, as he clomped his way through the corridors to her office, then he pulled off the helmet as Pepper rushed across the room to throw her arms around his neck.

(He winced in sympathy as her elbows hit the chestplate; she might not feel it now, but she was sure to have bruises later.)

"Tony," she said, and it was full of fear and relief and adrenaline, all the things that she was _not supposed to have to worry about_ , and he wrapped his arms around her and just held her for a while.

Eventually they both drew back, but only a little; Tony brushed her hair behind her ear and said, "Do you think this thing actually has a shot? Or is it just, you know, grasping at straws?"

Pepper gave a shaky laugh. She said, "When he showed up, when he just appeared like that and started asking questions, it was the silliest thing - all I could think about was how you… you do this, when you make a new friend, you go and you interrogate all the people who know them until you know everything there is to know about them."

"Obie tried to _kill me_ , and Natasha was a _spy_ ," he protested, injured. "I have every right to be a little cautious, thank you--"

"So does Loki, isn't that your whole line of reasoning?"

"Unfortunately, being a paranoid control freak isn't actually a sign of inherent goodness, so I don't know where you're going with this."

"I just… think…" Pepper sighed, patting him on the chestplate. "I think I've spent too long around you and I've become infected by your very special brand of insanity, because yes, I think there is a small chance, a very small chance, that you can reach something in there."

"Huh." He mulled that over. "Well. That's a ringing endorsement."

It actually was, in a way. Pepper wasn't always too concerned with the greater good. She had a comforting level of selfishness that kept him grounded, kept him from killing himself trying to solve the whole world's problems. To have her backing him on this gave him a reassuring boost of confidence, not that he'd ever admit he needed it.

"So," said Tony, "this thing tonight, with the senator. Can we reschedule it anyway?"

Pepper smiled, all wry sheepishness. "Honestly, I already emailed his assistant while we were on the phone."

"Attagirl," he said, and kissed her.

\--


End file.
